There a few different ways that gold is priced. In the western world the price of gold is measured or priced in ounces or oz. for short.

This gold price is also measured or related to the market it is trading on whether it be the spot market, the gold futures market
which is a price for gold say three months down the road. There is also a bid side price per ounce which would be a buy price and there
is also a sell price by the ounce. The most common price of gold you see though is the daily spot price which of course is measured in ounces. There is also a gold price per ounce for companies who are forward selling their gold. Companies can lock in a price (hedge) and forward sell X amount of gold ounces for the agreed price. This can work well if the price of gold goes down but not so well when the price of gold per ounce goes up. Then the seller is out the potential profits.

Gold by the ounce is the most common way to purchase gold. Most gold coins like the Maple Leaf gold coin shown here are one ounce of .999 % pure gold. The gold coin pictured here is a one tenth ounce gold coin. Lately though as the price of gold has been going higher into the thousands of dollars per ounce, we are starting to see some of these gold coins come out in smaller versions such as half ounce gold coins, quarter ounce gold coins, even one tenth ounce gold coins. In Eastern countries such as most European countries gold is priced in grams, thus a lot of gold coins are weighted and measured in grams.

Below is a handy conversion type of table that shows you how fine gold can be counted and measured. This will allow you to calculate the price of gold in not only ounces or oz. but also in pennyweights of gold, grams of gold and grains of gold.